Thank you, General Bolden, for your service to this country.

I am committed to making this national resource, that is the International Space Station, available to a broader scientific and commercial research communities.

We are also confident that this budget supports a 2018 launch for the James Webb Space Telescope.

And I will tell you we both have a healthy degree of skepticism about OMB because OMB has thought that it has been running the space program for over the last decade.

We are on track to develop a flexible deep space launch system that will ultimately be the most capable in history.

Now something just doesn't seem right there. Why the delay of 4 years?

If we create a suite of launch vehicles, with variable launch capability, then needs at any one moment will determine the destination.

No one is as concerned about cybersecurity and IT security as I.

And you have just done it so eloquently, so incisively, and I couldn't help but think as you were speaking to be reminded of the event that we just had down at the Cape on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of John Glenn's historic space…

We, as Americans, have always had a frontier. We have always been pressing that frontier, and as a result, we have always been explorers and adventurers.

Thank you, Senator Bill Nelson for introducing S. 260 and the 50 Senators who have co-sponsored this important repeal legislation.